STOP! -Before You Take That Next Diet
Pill
Wendy Gesaman
Doctor of Pharmacy Candidate, 2001
Ohio Northern University
It
seems that everyone wants to lose weight. Today you can find
weight loss products in pharmacies, grocery stores, and even
at the mall. But are these products safe? A 42-year old mother
bought an herbal weight loss product that contained the herb
ephedra. She thought the herbal diet aid "had to be" safe because
the label said it was "all natural". After taking the weight
loss product for 8 days, she started to complain of a headache
and a tight feeling in her chest. Later that day, she was rushed
to the emergency room because her heart stopped beating and
she stopped breathing. She spent the next ten days on life support.
This woman was lucky, she survived.
Herbal diet aids and over-the-counter (OTC) diet
aids are sold across the United States without a prescription.
Ephedra, also known as ma huang, has been used by the Chinese
for more than 5000 years. Today ephedra continues to find its
place in the herbal market as a weight loss product. The New
England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) released an article regarding
the risks of phenylpropanolamine (PPA), which is another diet
aid similar in many ways to ephedra. The article concluded that
women who take PPA products may be at a greater risk for developing
a type of stroke in which blood leaks into the brain. Even though
the risk of having a stroke is rare, the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) has asked the companies that produce drug products containing
PPA to voluntarily stop selling these products. While consumers
will no longer be able to buy OTC products that contain PPA,
they can still buy herbal weight loss products that contain
forms of ephedra. In fact, the American Herbal Products Association
(AHPA) estimated that over 3 billion doses of ephedra products
were sold last year. Popular herbal diet products that contain
ephedra include: Diet Fuel® (Twin Laboratories), ThermiCare®
(Met-Rx USA) ETA Stack® (Nutra Sport), Xenadrine RFA-1® (Cytodyne
Technologies) and Metabolife 356® (Metabolife International).
These products are easy to buy, but how safe are they?
Ephedra has been linked to serious side effects
such as death, strokes, and seizures. So why did the FDA ask
that PPA be removed from the market and leave ephedra on the
market? Since ephedra is classified as an herbal dietary product,
it doesn't have to meet the same safety standards as prescription
and OTC drugs.
The message to every consumer is: Before you start
taking an ephedra diet aid be sure it is safe for you to use.
Where do you get good advice on herbal weight loss products?
That can be a challenge.
One night after work another Doctor of Pharmacy
student and I went into a major chain store that sells herbal
products and vitamins. I asked the salesman to show me where
the weight loss products were and if any of them contained ephedra.
He not only showed me the weight loss products that contain
ephedra, but recommended that I buy one of them. This surprised
me because neither my friend nor I need to lose weight. Ephedra
products definitely are linked to serious risks, but no one
asked me any of the following questions: